


Lines

by WahlBuilder



Series: Languages of Love [8]
Category: The Technomancer (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-29 02:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17799539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WahlBuilder/pseuds/WahlBuilder
Summary: David notices new tattoos on Jeff's back.





	Lines

The new lines are a fascinating, worrying mystery.

David didn’t notice them the night before (he was too busy mapping Jeff’s body with his hands and mouth, learning it again). The carved patterns on Jeff’s shoulders are familiar: they are the same markings that many mutants in the Valley wear — but these two lines on his back are different.

Worrying.

Jeff’s hair is bleached from the sun, his skin darker than it was back in Ophir. Both of them are changed men (even though Jeff turned out to be not what David thought).

But these two lines. They look likes someone took a brush into each hand and then dragged them down Jeff’s back, following the muscles.

The ladder is slightly faded — but these are fresh, all the way from the shoulders down to the dip in the small of Jeff’s back.

“Stop staring and ask the question already,” Jeff says into the pillow.

Jeffrey Watcher is not, in many ways, Jeff Hunter, David’s green Rookie, his _szczypior_. They even sound different: Jeff was all enthusiasm — Jeffrey is snappish, cold. Weary. The weariness seems to grow in his very bones.

“What are these?” David asks, dragging a nail over one of the twin lines. He suppresses the urge to squeeze Jeff’s ass when the line ends.

“Tattoos.”

David frowns. This different Jeff — Jeffrey — is certainly a challenge, but… He misses the Rookie, too.

(He was so blind, Shadow, he was so blind…)

“What do they mean?”

“Not your concern.”

He purses his lips, then sits up. “Fine. Be that way.” He was a damn fool, and this… This sneak seduced him. That’s all. And he’s more of a fool for kissing him yesterday.

He hears a sigh, and the bed creaks.

“It’s personal.”

“You could have just said so.”

“I’m sorry. It’s raw. I got them because of my father.”

“Do you even have one?”

He regrets saying that when it is followed by silence. He turns to Jeff, finds him running a hand through his hair.

“Jeff…”

“I have more than the usual number of fathers,” Jeff says with a twisted smile. “One is long gone, two others are… It’s complicated.”

David runs a thumb over one of the lines again, pressing into the tense muscles. “This for the deceased one or one of the living?”

“One of the living. He has similar tattoos. I wanted…” Jeff pulls his knees to his chest.

David wonders how old he is.

“Complicated relationship with the living?”

“Yeah. And they have an even more complicated relationship between themselves.”

Complicated. What a sleek word.

David kisses the start of one line near Jeff’s shoulder. “I’d like to meet your fathers.”

Jeff laughs. “Oh Davie. You really don’t.”

But he does. He wants to learn Jeffrey Watcher. “Complicated” doesn’t have to mean “wrong.”


End file.
